Transcript Document

Sudan
Brief historical overview of pre-colonial
period to independence
Presentation material for educators and activists
developed by: UnderstandingSudan.org
latest version: March 11, 2006
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University of California, Berkeley © 2006
Independence: 1956
• The British ceded power rather quickly, to a class
of educated graduates of Gordon College. This
class had a well-developed sense of Sudan as a
nation with a Muslim and Arab identity. They
viewed the western and southern regions as
romantic, quaint, backwards areas that needed
to be civilized and pacified. There was little
sense of multi-cultural tolerance.
• The class was, however, fractured along
sectarian lines within strains of Sufi Islam, across
political ideologies (from Communism to proEgyptian unity), and
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Independence: 1956
• The class was, however, fractured along
sectarian lines within strains of Sufi Islam
(Ansar- legacy of the Mahdist movement,
Khatmiyya- a Sufi sect originally opposed to the
Mahdiyya and initially allied with the British
and Egypt), across political ideologies (from
Communism to pro-Egyptian unity), and across
smaller ethnic groups (tribes) of the northern
Sudanese elite
• 1958: First parliamentary period collapsed with
a welcomed military coup by General Ibrahim
Abboud.
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Southerners had insignificant role
• British program to ‘indigenize’ the civil service
was highly rigged against southerners, partially
because they did not have much education and
did not speak Arabic
– 1954- only 6 southerners were appointed to 800 senior
administrative posts.
• Southern political leaders largely excluded from
deciding the structure of the north-south
relationship
– No consideration for southern autonomy in
independent Sudan; problem of cultural and regional
minority ignored
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October Revolution: 1964
• October 1964 people in Khartoum take to the
streets, and overthrow military regime
• First African popular revolt since anti-colonial
movement, first military dictator thrown out by
popular movement
• But victory is short-lived: Parliamentary regime
under Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi (great
grandson of the Mahdi) overthrown in 1969
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Dictatorship of Gaafar Nimeiri:
1969-1985
• Nimieri proves skilled dictator, surviving
numerous coups, intriguing constantly
with political forces, building pretensions
of rule by consent through novel political
institutions (the single party Sudanese
Socialist Union)
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Dictatorship of Gaafar Nimeiri:
1969-1985
• Borrows enormously from creditor nations, esp. when
allies with Anwar Sadat of Egypt after signing of Camp
David accords with Israel in 1979
• Inflation grows, economic bottlenecks emerge,
mechanized farming displaces peasant farmers, leads to
environmental destruction
• Sudanese pound repeatedly devalued, currency
exchange heavily regulated, indebtedness grouws to
$10b
• 1984: Refugees from Ethiopian famine overburden
eastern Sudan, then famine breaks out in western Sudan
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Jonglei canal: Southern
grievance against North
• The canal would drain the Sudd swamp which
the White Nile flows through
• Southerners felt that the water would go to the
north to benefit northern Sudan and Egypt.
• No one cared what it would do to the ecology of
the south
– Would destroy pasturage and fish ponds the main
source of livelihood for the south.
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Fundamentalist Islam: Northern
grievance against Nimeiri
• In 1983 Nimeiri consolidated a personal and political
shift to an alliance with the small but growing National
Islamic Front
• Named Hasan al Turabi, NIF leader, as Attorney General
• Turabi and Nimeiri introduced shari’a law to replace
British common law and British-based statutes in
criminal courts
– Flogging, amputations and crucifixion as punishment
– Alcoholic beverages made illegal
• Hanging on Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, leader of
reformist Islamic sect (the Republican Brothers) for
apostasy
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Second popular uprising? 1985
• Students and population again take to the streets
in April 1985, in conscious echo of 1964
• But Nimeiri’s second-in-command, Suwar alDahab takes power in palace coup while Nimeiri
visiting George Bush in Washington
• One year transition period, elections, lead to
another parliamentary regime with Prime
Minister Sadiq al Mahdi returning to power
• Civil war – see later slide – continues, ecnoomic
decline continues
• June 30, 1989: Military takes over in coup
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Islamist rule: 1989-present
• Military takes power in June 1989
• At first presented as neutral, but quickly
revealed to be allied with National Islamic Front
• Hasan al Turabi, leader of NIF, at first placed
under arrest, emerges to be true leader of regime
• Torture and summary execution used to
establish power early on
• Full implementation of shari’a law and alliances
with fundamentalism/Islamist forces pursued
(Osama bin laden hosted in Sudan 1990-1996)
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Recent developments
• 1999: Turabi and military leader General Omar
al Bashir fall out, Turabi arrested and loses
power struggle. Turabi remains under virtual
house arrest
• Oil pipeline built and oil fields developed in
alliances with oil companies from China,
Malaysia and India.
• Oil exports begin in 2003, revenue to
government now amounts to perhaps $2 billion
per year, half of the government budget
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Civil war in southern Sudan
• 1955: Shortly before formal transfer of power
from British to independent parliamentary
regime, several barracks of southern soldiers
mutiny in southern Sudan, leave for the bush
and across borders to Ethiopia and Uganda
• Grievances: Northern military officers will take
over southern garrisons, and south will become
a “colony” of northern Sudan with forced
Islamization and Arabization
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Anya Nya
• Civil war in south very slow moving, with few
pitched battles
• Rebel groups gradually coalesce into Anya Nya
force
• Joseph Lagu emerges as undisputed leader
• By many accounts obtains arms from Israel
• Signs Addis Ababa agreement with general
Nimeiri in 1972
– Regional autonomy of southern Sudan
– Integration of military forces
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Nimeiri’s abrogation of Addis
Ababa
• After discover of oil by chevron in southern
Sudan in Bentiu and Heglig, Nimeiri
emasculates Addis Ababa agreements,
eventually dividing South into three regions
under governors controlled by northern Sudan
• Southern soldiers rebel in 1983, join remnants of
Anya Nya, eventually form Sudan People’s
Liberation Army (SPLA)
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Sudan People’s Liberation Army
(SPLA)
• Under John Garang, Ph.D. economist and
Colonel in Sudanese Army, SPLA emerges as
undisputed leader of southern rebellion
• Begins as a Marxist movement closely allied to
Ethiopia
• SPLA controls much of countryside in southern
Sudan from 1983-2005
• Early on drops Marxist language and reinvented
as fighting for a “New Sudan” that would
promote tolerant and inclusive state focusing on
equitable development
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SPLA - trouble
• When Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile
Mariam overthrown in 1989, SPLA in trouble
• 1991: Riek Machar, Lam Akol and Gordon Kong
split with john Garang
– Accuse Garang of being dictator and arbitrary rule
– Subtext of fighting for separation rather than “New
Sudan”
• Split leads to terrible inter-tribal fighting in
South Sudan – Dinka against Nuer – thousands
are massacred
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SPLA - redemption
• Garang establishes alliances with powerful U.S.
Christian movement – slavery issue
• Machar and others sign peace agreement with
Khartoum regime in 1997 – become discredited
• U.S. government firmly backs Garang with
economic assistance and pressure on Khartoum,
accusing Sudan of supporting terrorism and
slavery
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The slavery issue of the 1990s
• Lots of controversy over what is a slave, in the
same way there is controversy over naming of
genocide
– Slavery Convention of 1926 defines slavery as the
status of a person over whom any or all of the powers
attaching to the right of ownership are exercised
– Condition or status of being owned
– Slave trade is defined as all acts involved in the
capture and acquisition of a person with the intent to
sell, exchange, or dispose of him or her
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The Sudan government
response
• NIF government of Hassan Turabi
deliberately widened the definition of
slavery to include all forms of exploitation
– In this way Turabi and Sudan government
portrayed slavery as relatively banal, likening
it to the extreme economic exploitation that
one sees in lots of societies, rather than chattel
slavery
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Where/how did slave raiding
happen?
• Slavers were typically from the Baggara ethnic
group – identified in Sudan as Arab cattle
herders
• Slaves were typically members of the Dinka
ethnic group
• Historical relationship of cattle raiding between
the two groups.
• What is different now is that the raiding attacks
are sponsored by the government to pillage for
cattle, loot grain, and capture Dinka women and
children and sell them into slavery in the North
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Why is slavery so persistent in
Sudan?
• Eradication of Nile slave trade a major Victorian
cause in the 1870s
• Long tradition of domestic servitude in northern
Sudan
• Race and Notions of Superiority in Sudan
• Many northern Sudanese regard themselves as
Arab, and see southern Sudanese as African,
different, and perhaps sub-human
• Common for northern Sudanese in both private
and public discourse to refer to southerners as
abid (“slave”)
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Government has allowed slavery to
be used as weapon of war
• Slave taking militias are allied with
Sudanese army as part of war against
SPLA
– Murahileen- tribal militias that raid villages
and loot, pillage and capture slaves
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Arguments against slave
redemption
• If there are foreigners willing to pay to redeem
slaves, people might take advantage of it as a
business opportunity – more slave-raiding?
– risk of fraud in the redemption process
– middlemen might borrow children who have never
been abducted
– SPLA commanders charge exorbitant exchange rates
• Undercuts local peace efforts between Baggara
and Dinka
– halt raiding in exchange for access to dry season
grazing
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John Garang
de Mabior
June 23, 1945 –
July 30, 2005
Vice President,
Sudan
SPLA Leader
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Comprehensive Peace
Agreement
• Signed January 9, 2005 after almost two years of
negotiations that began in earnest with the
Machakos Protocol of 2003
• Six year interim period of joint rule (SPLA leader
to be Vice President of Sudan and President of
Government of Southern Sudan) followed by
referendum – South can vote to become
independent country
• Oil revenues to be split 50:50 between North
and South.
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